Eighty years after explorer Wilfred Thesiger first crossed the Rub' al Khali — the Empty Quarter, the largest sand desert on Earth — a new book has been launched in Abu Dhabi bringing his Arabian journeys back into print and into focus.
Wilfred Thesiger in Arabia was officially unveiled by Sheikh Nahyan bin Mubarak Al Nahyan, the UAE's Minister of Tolerance and Coexistence, at the Motivate Media Group stand during the Abu Dhabi International Book Fair on 17 September. Sheikh Nahyan, who also wrote the book's Foreword, described it as a significant contribution to the record of the region's history, culture and heritage.
Thesiger was one of the last great figures of classical exploration. Travelling by camel with Bedouin companions in the 1940s, he crossed territory that few outsiders had ever seen, photographing desert life, tribal communities and a peninsula on the cusp of transformation — decades before the skylines of Dubai and Abu Dhabi existed. His images and accounts, later published as Arabian Sands, remain some of the most vivid documentation of that vanished world.
The new volume, edited by Ian Fairservice and Alexander Maitland, pairs his photography with essays from a heavyweight cast: Sir David Attenborough, Sir Ranulph Fiennes, BBC security correspondent Frank Gardner, veteran explorer Benedict Allen, photography scholar Elizabeth Edwards and author-dr historian Dr Peter Clark. Their contributions examine Thesiger's legacy and argue for his archive's value as a record of Arabia during a period of sweeping social and urban change.
For travellers, the book is a useful companion to any trip into the region's deserts. Much of the landscape Thesiger crossed — the dune fields of Liwa on Abu Dhabi's edge, the Empty Quarter's more accessible corners in the UAE and Oman — can now be reached by 4WD, guided desert drive or even a luxury resort stay. Reading his accounts before or after makes the scale of both the desert and the change more tangible: you can stand on dunes he crossed by camel.
Copies were available at the Abu Dhabi International Book Fair, which closed on 18 September, priced at Dhs160 (around £35). If you missed the fair, the book is stocked at bookshops across the region or direct from BooksArabia.com, so it's easy to order before a Gulf trip.
Whether you're planning a desert excursion out of Abu Dhabi or just want a deeper sense of the Arabia behind the modern cityscape, this is a well-timed reissue with genuine authority behind it. Story credited to What's On Dubai.
